To assume the baby is actually a changeling?!

[Rollonbedtime7pm]

DD2 is 9 months (just about) and has always been a good sleeper. Once we got bedtime sorted, she has always settled well with a dummy, never had to really rock her or help her along to sleep. She started sleeping through around Christmas and was doing well.

However.

She is currently being a total PITA - thrashes and cries at bedtimes, sometimes at naps too, wakes 3 or 4 times in the night and can't be soothed with her dummy.

The other night she was up for 3 hours between 10pm and 1am!

She's not really upset, just if you try to leave her in bed, but if we bring her in with us she just chats and pokes me in the face.

We assume teething and give calpol but it makes little difference. She is also being more stroppy during the day when she has always been so chilled out.

AIBU to assume she has been swapped out with someone else?! And if she is in fact my baby, will she ever sleep again?!

9 month sleep regression. Also a big developmental leap around this time. Does she look like she's about to start crawling or cruising?

Don't rest on your laurels when it comes to sleep! Expect it to be shit for at least the first two years and you'll have a better chance of being pleasantly surprised rather than crushed every few months or so.

As above, I would say its a development leap. I was like this every time and it still caught me by surprise.

This was DS for 18 months- dream baby for a few months, then night time hell child. It's totally hideous when they are in the no sleep phase, but you know that they can do it and they will again. In the meantime, drink coffee.

So....my theory is that ALL babies go through this stage at some point. Where they suddenly become more demanding and won't sleep. Sounds like this is your time.

Some have a horrible newborn stage, some have a horrendous four month sleep regression, some have a nightmare with teething. Some just have a weird patch for no real reason at all. But very few babies seem to stay 'easy' all the way through and pass completely on this opportunity to torture their parents for a bit.

This is based on absolutely no science or evidence whatsoever, just my experience observing lots and lots of parents and babies over the past year.

I think you just have to ride it out. Good luck!

She's a changeling. Your baby has been kidnapped by an evil sprite to bring a curse upon you and your family.
We need to find the source of this curse and see if we can unwork it to bring your daughter back.
Did you perchance click on a Daily Mail link?

OMG Baroness that must be it - I knew I would be punished for that!

In answer to a PP, she is learning to crawl at the moment and has suddenly started saying some new sounds so development it may just be.

Her sister was a bloody nightmare until she was 3 1/2 so I had rather hoped I had done my time with shit sleepers and I had got 3rd time lucky with this one! Her brother possibly did the same but DD1 in between as frazzled my memory of him!

Yep, changeling. "They" take our perfectly behaved human children and swap them for horrible doppelgängers. Just be on your guard, once you get this child half-way civilized again "They'll" swap 'em back but in the interim your own child has been allowed to get totally out of hand so you'll be back to square 1. The worst one is the one they drop on you around puberty - you won't see your real child again until he/she turns 18-19. The govt knows all about it too and refuses to do anything. Bastards.